I have spent most of the last week watching Al Gore do his best to lose an election. And make no mistake, this was Gore's to lose. He started out as the incumbent at a time of American dominance abroad and record-breaking prosperity at home - running against a graduate from the Dan Quayle school of political gravitas. It should have been a walk in the park. But Gore has succeeded in making it a slog in the mire.

Of course, in a race this close everything could change between now and November 7. But the evidence so far is not encouraging. It's not just the bald poll numbers, which have George W Bush narrowly ahead. It's the state-by-state polls, crucial in a system where winning the right combination of states matters more than the total number of votes nationwide. Here's where Gore is in trouble. Places he should be able to call his own - Minnesota, Oregon, his native Tennessee - are suddenly in play, with Bush inching out front.

But more important than any poll is the feel and atmosphere, the smell of the campaign - and that's what's turning against Gore. He's beginning to look like a loser. If that impression solidifies, he's done for: Americans like to back a winner and, if Bush is deemed the man, Gore's support will haemorrhage away.

How has this happened? How has a candidate who should have coasted to the White House come to see it slip into the distance? The answer says lots about Al Gore, a fair bit about America - and much about the way our own politics could soon be heading.

Here's a Gore soundbite I heard repeated perhaps a dozen times: "This election is not about the past, it's about the future." Put that down as Gore mistake number one: he is not running on the record of the last eight years, he's running from it. Sure, he mentions the phenomenal prosperity Americans enjoy now, which they did not in 1992, but only in order to discuss how he might build on it.

That may be honourable, but it is dumb politics. For it takes the current budget surplus as a given, an inevitable fact of nature which both Presidents Gore or Bush would enjoy. In an instant, the playing field is level - and Americans are not asked who deserves credit for this success, but to choose between rival plans on how to spend it. Gore's entire advantage is eroded.

The flesh-and-blood embodiment of Gore's refusal to run on the recent record is, of course, Bill Clinton. The vice president never refers to the Clinton-Gore administration, even though it still enjoys sky-high approval ratings; nor does he refer to his boss by name; nor does he want to be seen with him in public. Score that as Gore mistake number two.

The strategists say Clinton is still a turn-off to the crucial undecided voters in swing states, America's Worcestor Women, who regard the Prez as a sleaze. But by bowing to that tiny sliver of voters, Gore has robbed himself of the nuclear weapon of American politics: the best campaigner in the world. He could have had Clinton working below radar, energising the core Democratic vote, firing up black communities (where Clinton is still adored), doing radio ads, motivating workers in blue-collar states like Michigan. Instead, Gore has kept the big dog chained up, pining to be set free.

How could Gore do this to himself? The answer probably has less to do with electoral calculation than egotism and petulance. The vice president is sick of being in the big guy's shadow; he desperately wants to win this one on his own, as "my own man". There is a horrible precedent here. In 1996, Israeli Labour party aides begged Shimon Peres to use TV ads centred on his much-loved (and slain) predecessor Yitzhak Rabin. But Peres was too proud. Like Gore, he wanted to win the election on his own. Instead, he lost it all by himself.

Which brings us to the central problem of the Gore candidacy: his personality. The simple fact, repeated ad nauseam, is that the vice president does not connect. I'd read it before, but now I've seen it. I watched him address a trade union rally in downtown Manhattan, a hotel ballroom packed with activists and loyal Democrats. They were rooting for Al, desperate for him to do well. They lifted their heads and waved their banners, straining to make a connection with the candidate. And he spoke fluently and well. But the moment of connection - that near-telepathic moment of emotional docking that happens every time Bill Clinton steps into a room - just refused to happen. Gore's words seemed to skim over the audience, not one of them sinking in. At the rally's end the room drained instantly, a sure-sign of an ailing candidacy: when it's a good one, the punters can't tear themselves away.

Part of the trouble is linguistic. Gore uses complex, Latinate vocabulary while his opponent prefers plain, Anglo-Saxon English. Asked about the Middle East, Gore urged the Palestinians to "cease and desist"; Bush said, "Put down your rocks, put down your stones." Which message would you remember?

This is why the three TV debates were all bad news for Gore. Technically he may have won, by being smarter than Bush, but that was not the problem. By sighing audibly in the first debate and marching over to Bush and, in Americanese, "invading his personal space" in the third, Gore came off as arrogant and obnoxious, a combination of school swot and playground bully. Bush, meanwhile, sounded sufficiently plausible on the issues to scrape across the threshold required of a presidential candidate - and was a whole lot more charming. One poll afterward found Bush beating Gore on the likeability index by 60 points to 31.

Why does this matter? Because this is where this elections is being fought. Compulsory campaign stops these days are not the factory gates or county fair, but Regis Live and the Rosie O'Donnell Show: the Richard and Judy hour of American TV. Presidential candidates have to go on these shows, alongside Hollywood wannabes and breast cancer survivors, and be warm, open and friendly. Gore struggles. Bush is a natural.

"This is not a popularity contest," says the Gore team. But that's mistake number three. For that's exactly what this election has become. We are in the era of Big Brother democracy, with politics a national soap opera. Election day is like that Friday night moment on Channel 4, with the viewers deciding who to cast in America's lead role. Voters are not so much choosing the leader of the free world, as deciding which guy they want to see on their TV sets day in, day out for the next four years: Gore's voice droning on, or W - a guy who knows how to party?

Clinton's to blame, of course. He turned the Oval Office into the Big Brother house, a voyeurs' den of sex and psychodrama. He survived each week, but the deputy enjoys none of his luck. Unless he changes pretty fast, Al is about to be kicked off the show.